Changes in Publication-Based Academic Interest in Local Anesthetics Over the Past 50 Years

•Changes in academic interest in local anesthetics (LA) were expressed quantitatively.•Final concentration of the interest was on a very limited number of LA.•Changes in the interest-related relationships between LA were developing very slowly.

PurposeTo present the history of changes in academic interest in local anesthetics quantitatively.MethodsThe changes in publication-based academic interest in local anesthetics were assessed using information from the database of PubMed. The assessment was mostly based on the following indices: general popularity index (GPI), representing the proportion of articles on a drug relative to all articles in the field of regional anesthesia, and specific popularity index (SPI), representing the proportion of articles on a drug relative to all articles in one of the four forms of regional anesthesia: local anesthesia, spinal anesthesia, epidural anesthesia, and peripheral nerve blocks.ResultsThe most important general feature of the changes in publication-based academic interest in local anesthetics for the past 50 years was the concentration of this interest on a very limited number of drugs. By 2010-2014, only three anesthetics demonstrated the GPI value above 4.0: bupivacaine (10.1), lidocaine (10.0), and ropivacaine (4.6). All other local anesthetics had GPI declining mostly to less than 1.0 (2010-2014). The rate of change in publication-based academic interest was very slow in both its increase and decline. The most profound change in publication-based academic interests was caused by the introduction of bupivacaine. During a 20-year period (from 1965-1969 to 1985-1989), bupivacaine's GPI increased from 1.3 to 12.9.ConclusionA slowly developing concentration of publication-based academic interest on a very limited number of local anesthetics was the dominant feature related to this class of anesthetic agents.